Does extreme shyness make life dysfunctional?
Asalamo Aleykom I want to wish you all a happy and blessed Ramadhan. And thank you for the lovely services the IOL and those at service offer. I am 15 soon going to be 16 InshaAllah. I am looking for a true islamic and proffesional help/advice. It may not sound serious but to me its a really heavy burden that keeps eating my perception almost everyday except when am alone, but even then sometimes it attacks me. I know shynes is a vitue that pleases Allah(swt) and Rasulullah(saw). I always appeased my self on that but in reality its some kind of disease that i knew i had even before everyone commented on it. I dont know if this is normal but i feel like mine has gone to an extreme. I lived with my mum in Canada then moved to US. Both countries i suffered this malady since i could remember. In these countries we cannot avoid the mixing of the two genders. When i was in elementary it was really painful. I remember i never made friends and almost every girl was ok with the opposite sex. Anyone who sees me immidiately knows what am suffering from. Its so obvious that people never stopped making fun of me. I could never talk to boys even one who is so kind and sitting next to me. I would do anything even leave my sit or pretend i didnt hear him. All i have ever wanted is just to be normal around men. I belive one can talk and have a conversation with the opposite sex without any misjudgement or flirtery. I have an older sister whom i look up to. She is very conservative and MashaAllah i really admire her taqwa. But she is as normal as any next person. She has diplomatic conversation with guys, and when in college they form a group study of both muslim boys and muslimah's. Do not mistake it. They truelly abide by the islamic sharia where even in their study goup hall they sit seperately and discuss their study with the most proper ethics. I have always admired my sister and her firends. I try my best to live by Islamic ethics and i know that Islam doesnt say dont talk to guys. So how come i dont? how come i keep convincing myself that this is what islam wants from me? I am now in highchool and the sufering is now worse. I have grown up and i have admitted that i have this problem. But now its getting worse even more. I cant talk to guy's to the extent that i get this weird thoughts in my mind. When ever a guy looks at me i start thinking that he's interested so i immidiately trun away. It has reached to an extent that i think the same of my teachers, cousins and almost any man who is a non mahram. In my family only one of my sister realised how bad my situation is. The rest of my family just thinks that its a noraml shyness. Infact my brothers and my mum are very happy about it. They always makes these jokes that i wount cause them any trouble with the 'boyfriend' issue. My sister who knows what's going on with me once told me to try to help myself or when it gets worse i may even go to a point that i may never get married. Now that i am in high school, i meet alot of people. My best friend is 17 and soon after her graduation this year she's getting married. She is an easy going person and friends with both girls and boys. She always tells me that there is no harm in talking to guys and there isnt anything going on between the two or anything that can up just by talking. She says that lots of muslimah's all over the world talk to different men and that doesnt necessarily mean that they have something going on and that in life i will encounter all kind of men which doesnt mean that i'll be likely getting married to any of them. I have this problem of always thinking that, just when i talk to a guy then he must have something in his mind other than the issue his talking to me about. All these voices in my head renders me to always avoid eye contact and i have never in my whole life carried a normal conversation with a man. Please help me? What is this that i am going through? Is there anything that can cure me? Jazakumulah Khayrun.
